Festival of Lights.

The Hindu festival of Diwali (Deepavali), celebrated this year on October 20, commemorates the victory of Light over Darkness and of dharma over adharma – an affirmation that truth and order ultimately prevail.

Diwali in Goa carries a special resonance through the legend of Narakasur, the demon who personifies darkness (tamas), ego (ahamkara), and adharma. In sacred memory, Krishna’s beheading of Narakasur marks the vanquishing of a tyrant and the restoration of dharma in the world.

On Diwali’s eve, towns and villages across the state raise towering effigies of the asura – grotesque and fearsome – which are carried in night-long processions and consigned to flames at dawn, re-enacting the moment of his destruction and the vindication of righteousness.

The photographs below were taken in Panjim in 2006, when the digital photography era was just gathering momentum. They were made with the original Canon EOS 5D, then a landmark body and the first widely adopted full-frame DSLR camera. Nearly two decades later, revisiting these files with today’s AI-powered processing tools proved rewarding, revealing tonal subtleties and image quality once beyond reach.